From DE 36 10 736 A1 there is known a hair removal apparatus, in this case an electrically driven shaving apparatus, on which an actuator head, in this case a short-hair cutter, is movably fastened to the housing. The short-hair cutter includes two shaving foils that extend essentially parallel to the axis of rotation of the actuator head and under each of which respectively one oscillating under cutter with individual sheet-metal disks is slidingly arranged. On this electric shaving apparatus, the short-hair cutter forms the only actuator system.
From DE 198 59 017 C1 there is known in addition a hair removal apparatus which is constructed as a hair clipper and on which the actuator head includes two different actuator systems. In this arrangement two cutting blades are assigned to a single clipper comb and can be coupled, respectively according to the pivot position of the actuator head relative to the housing, to a drive element of the drive mechanism. In this way the clipper comb, which has two rows of cutting teeth, can be brought by means of a pivot movement into an optimum cutting position relative to a skin surface.
The construction of two cutting blades on one clipper comb also enables in advantageous manner a different construction of the teeth on the clipper comb and the teeth on the two cutting blades, for example in that the width of one row of cutting teeth is constructed substantially smaller than the width of the other row of cutting teeth. As a result it is possible, for example, to cut long hair with the one row of cutting teeth and short hair with the other row of cutting teeth. To make this possible, the actuator head must be pivoted about a pivot axis that in this case lies outside the clipper comb. According to FIGS. 6 and 7 of DE 198 59 017 C1, the cutting teeth row 41 thus comes to rest on the housing 1 and is inactive in this position while the cutting teeth row 40 according to FIG. 7 now projects freely outward and can make contact with the skin. According to FIG. 6, the cutting teeth row 41 had adopted its active position, meaning its shaving position, and the cutting edge 40 its rest position before the actuator head was pivoted.
With this hair clipper, the apparatus must also be turned in the hand when switching from the one clipper comb to the other clipper comb because the direction of the cutting plane is also shifted from one side of the housing to the other. Consequently, the electric switching device is moved from the outside, where it was easy to actuate with the thumb, to the inside of the hand where it is therefore no longer easy to reach. Because the pivot axis lies outside the clipper comb, the comb is rotatable only to a limited degree in the housing.